Having completed their "Dutch style" share auction, Google have decided on a price of $85 per share. Revised down from the expected $135, the change will mean that Google only raise $1.67 Billion, setting the company value at about $24 Billion. Yahoo, in comparison, is valued at about $39 Billion.
Google will be offering 19.6 million shares, and will be open for business on Thursday. The shares will be traded under "GOOG".
Google"s path to "IPO" has been marred with problems, each taking the glean off what was initially the most awaited IPO in technology history. Issues like breaching the "silence period" before selling ("that" playboy interview), and illegally giving shares to its employees, have culminated to bring down the perceived value of the Google offering. Google"s IPO followed a very non-standard route, which has annoyed many on Wall Street; reputable journal "The Economist" wrote last week that if Google does succeed in its IPO, it could set a trend for other companies going public- to avoid traditional investment bankers and go it alone – the implication being that it could cost some businesses a lot of money that they"d make from managing IPO"s.
That said, Google will still gain an enormous amount of revenue from the share sale. They have yet to decide (or announce) exactly where all these funds will be going.